Recent research on academic evaluation indicates that visibility plays an important role in how evaluation procedures take place and what kinds of effects they produce. Questions of blinding, transparency, confidentiality, and anonymity are predominant issues that are constantly discussed. As specific constellations of visibility between evaluation objects and subjects, they are central for configuring the evaluation process. Evaluation procedures furthermore produce visibility through directing attention to positively (or e.g. in cases of scientific misconduct to negatively) evaluated objects, ideas, persons, or practices. In particular, current debates about new ways of peer reviewing, performance measurement through altmetrics, or the rise of academic social media platforms demonstrate that evaluation procedures are configured through specific constellations of visibility that serve at the same time to legitimate evaluation results and to produce and navigate attention.

The workshop aims at bringing together current research on evaluationprocedures with sociological perspectives on visibility in the context ofscience studies and higher education research. We will discuss, on the onehand, how specific constellations of visibility influence evaluationresults and their acceptance as legitimate. On the other hand, we willdiscuss the role of visibility that results from evaluation procedures andcurrently becomes itself the object of measurement and evaluation.

The Workshop is jointly organized by the Department of Sciences Studies andthe Research Group “Reflexive Metrics – Retroaction and practices ofquantified orders of worth in science” at Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlinand by the Research Cluster “Evaluation Practices in Science and HigherEducation” at the German Centre for Higher Education Research and ScienceStudies (DZHW).

IMPORTANT: If you would like to attend the Workshop, please register viaemail (evaluationpractices[at]dzhw.eu) until November 1, 2018.